What Swan is for
Practical English Usage is a reference for the questions grammar books do not answer: not how do I form the present perfect, but why does this sentence feel wrong when every rule says it is right.
Its great virtue is that it is descriptive, and Swan sets that out as policy in his introduction:
That is why he will tell you, flatly, that a rule you were taught is fiction. On the split infinitive: "There is an old rule which says that split infinitives are incorrect. This is not true." Nine words, and a decade of anxiety is over.
What it is not is a study plan. There are hundreds of entries, and you will need about a dozen. Here they are.
Five things you are allowed to do
Start here, because these cost people marks for no reason at all.
| The 'rule' | The reality |
|---|---|
| Never end a sentence with a preposition | Not a rule of English. This is the problem I was talking about is correct and natural. This is the problem about which I was talking is correct and reads as strained — which costs you more. |
| Never split an infinitive | Not a rule. To really understand the issue is fine and often clearer than the alternatives. |
| Never begin a sentence with And or But | Perfectly acceptable, including in academic writing, though it is worth using sparingly in a formal essay. |
| Never use I in an essay | IELTS Task 2 explicitly asks for your opinion. In my view is entirely appropriate. (Note this differs by academic discipline in real life.) |
| The passive is bad writing | Not in a process description, where nobody is named — the mixture is heated is correct, natural, and a complex structure that earns marks. |
None of these will lose you a mark. Contorting your English to avoid them will.
The questions that actually come up in scored answers
1. Countable and uncountable — the most expensive one
Informations, advices, researches, equipments, knowledges are among the most common errors in the whole test, and they are visible instantly because they change the determiner too.
- Uncountable, always: information, advice, research, equipment, furniture, knowledge, progress, evidence, accommodation, traffic.
- To count them: a piece of advice, an item of equipment, a body of research.
- And the determiners follow: much information (not many), less traffic (not fewer), a great deal of evidence.
2. The with general statements
Task 2 is full of general claims, and this is where articles actually matter.
- Children need exercise. — general. No article.
- The children in my street need exercise. — specific. Article.
- The government should act — a particular one, so the. But Governments should act is the general claim.
This is one of the few article questions worth fixing, because it recurs in every essay and the general/specific distinction actually changes what you are claiming.
3. Since / for / ago
- Since + a point in time: since 2010, since I was a child.
- For + a duration: for ten years, for a long time.
- Ago + past simple, never present perfect: I moved here five years ago — not I have moved here five years ago.
4. Present perfect vs past simple
The single most common tense error, and the rule is simpler than it is usually taught: if the time is finished, use the past simple.
- I lived in Tokyo for three years — I do not live there now.
- I have lived in Tokyo for three years — I still do.
- Yesterday I have gone to the shop — wrong. Yesterday is over, so it is I went.
5. Would for hypotheticals — the band-7 structure
Task 2 constantly invites the unreal conditional, and candidates constantly avoid it.
- If governments invested more, fewer people would drive. (present unreal — note the past tense after if)
- If the policy had been introduced earlier, emissions would have fallen. (past unreal)
6. Which vs that, and the comma that changes the meaning
- The policies that reduce emissions are expensive. — only those ones. No comma.
- The policies, which reduce emissions, are expensive. — all of them, and by the way they reduce emissions. Commas.
Examiners notice this, and it is a genuine range signal because it requires you to know what you are claiming.
The words that are actually confused
| Affect / effect | Affect is the verb, effect the noun. (The policy affected prices / The effect was small.) |
| Fewer / less | Fewer for countables (fewer cars), less for uncountables (less traffic). |
| Amount / number | Same split: the amount of money, the number of people. |
| Economic / economical | Economic = to do with the economy. Economical = cheap to run. |
| Historic / historical | Historic = significant. Historical = to do with history. |
| Practice / practise | In British English, practice is the noun and practise the verb. American English uses practice for both. |
| Rise / raise | Rise has no object (prices rose). Raise takes one (they raised prices). Task 1 lives on this. |
| Lie / lay | Same shape: lie has no object, lay takes one. |
Swan's own answer to "how much do mistakes matter?" — and the one place it does not apply
Tucked into the introduction is a passage that is worth more to most learners than any entry in the book, and it is the most generous thing any grammarian has written about people like you:
He goes further, and defines the word mistake itself as conditional: "'Mistake' is a relative term. The mistakes listed in this book are wrong if produced by someone aiming to write standard British or American English. They would not necessarily be incorrect in some other varieties."
Now notice what an exam is
An exam is precisely the situation Swan's conditional describes. You are aiming at standard British or American English, because that is the benchmark the descriptors are written against and you have volunteered for the measurement. In the one room where his reassurance is suspended, you are sitting in it.
That does not make him wrong. It makes the distinction he draws the most important one you can carry:
| What is being asked of you | |
|---|---|
| In the world | Be understood. Errors that do not obstruct meaning cost you almost nothing, and perfectionism costs you a great deal — because a learner afraid of mistakes stops speaking, and a person who has stopped speaking is not learning. |
| In the exam | Be measured against a standard. The same error that a colleague forgives instantly is a data point on a scale, and the scale is what you came for. |
How to use the book
- Do not read it through. The fourth edition is arranged thematically (the older alphabetical order was dropped), and Swan's own advice on finding things is to go through the Index: "the best way to find information about a particular point is to look in the Index at the end of the book." That is right for a reference and useless as a curriculum.
- Look things up when you are corrected. The moment you have made an error is the moment the entry will stick, because you have a reason to care about it.
- Keep a list of your own recurring errors and look those up. Everyone's list is short, specific, and different from everyone else's.
- Read the 'not a rule' entries once, for the freedom they give you.
Aflo marks your grammar sentence by sentence and gives you an improved version of your own writing, which is a fast way to discover which dozen entries are actually yours.
For the test, and for real English
For the test: learn the countable/uncountable list, the general/specific article distinction, and one conditional pattern. Those three cover most of what Swan will ever be asked by a candidate, and they recur in every single answer you will write.
For real English: Swan is the book to own for the rest of your life. Not because you will read it, but because English keeps producing questions — is it "different from" or "different to"?, can I say "none of them is"? — and having somewhere authoritative and honest to settle them is worth a great deal. He will usually tell you that both are acceptable, and that is genuinely the answer.
The habit worth keeping is the one the book teaches implicitly: look it up rather than guess, and be suspicious of anyone who tells you a rule that real writers ignore.
Frequently asked questions
Is it wrong to end an English sentence with a preposition?
No. Swan is clear that this is not a rule of English. 'This is the problem I was talking about' is correct and natural, while 'the problem about which I was talking' is technically correct and reads as strained. The strained version costs you more, because unnatural phrasing is penalised and the preposition would not have been.
Is Practical English Usage good for IELTS?
It is the best usage reference in English, and it is built for looking things up rather than reading through — the fourth edition is arranged thematically, and Swan tells you the best way in is the Index. Do not work through it. Look up the errors you actually make, and keep a list of your own recurring ones, which is short, specific, and different from everyone else's.
Can I use 'I' in an IELTS essay?
Yes. Task 2 explicitly asks for your opinion, so 'in my view' is entirely appropriate, and refusing to use the first person while being asked what you think produces awkward contortions. This differs by academic discipline in real-world writing, but for the test it is a non-issue.
What is the most common grammar error in IELTS?
Countable and uncountable nouns are among the most expensive and most frequent: 'informations', 'advices', 'researches', 'equipments'. These are always uncountable, and the error is doubly visible because it changes the determiner too — 'much information', not 'many informations'; 'less traffic', not 'fewer'. To count them you need a phrase: a piece of advice, an item of equipment, a body of research.
When should I use present perfect instead of past simple?
If the time period is finished, use the past simple. 'I lived in Tokyo for three years' means you no longer do; 'I have lived in Tokyo for three years' means you still do. And a finished time marker forces the past simple: 'yesterday I have gone' is wrong, because yesterday is over — it must be 'yesterday I went'.